Tomboys and Troublemakers Part V: Zut Zut Zut and a Bottle of Bordeleaux

[MrAbdiel]

How about a talent...

Catch Arrows:
(Requires Agility 60, Trained in Dodge Blow)
You may make a single Dodge attempt at an incoming projectile. You may only make one dodge per turn, as normal.
Without this talent, you cannot Dodge projectiles.

I am not above making custom talents for things sometimes! However, dodging arrows is sort of outside of human capability, and the supernatural creatures that can manage that have supernatural abilities to accomplish it.

That does inspire me to think about avoiding arrows and lean into the shield a bit, though. As it stands, the best part about the shield is the -10% to ranged attacks against you. But I've sort of nerfed away the shield's biggest selling point by making more weapons available as combinations for the free parry, so maybe Farothel is right that the shield is starting to look less and less worthwhile.

Maybe something like a half-action to actively use a shield to defend against projectiles - let's call it 'Hunker' - that doubles the effectiveness of that shield to +10%; and a Dynamic Combat Action (Lock Shields?) for shield users that permits you to add another 10% if you are adjacent to the an ally who is also hunkering. That would build in the ability for a group to lock up shields for a gnarly -30% to incoming projectiles providing they are willing to shuffle along at one move action per turn.